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Jalena Keane-Lee
Co-Founder at Breaktide Productions
Overview
Jalena Keane-Lee is a distinguished director, cinematographer, and producer renowned for her commitment to exploring interpersonal and systemic trauma while facilitating intergenerational healing through her powerful storytelling. As the co-founder of Breaktide Productions, Jalena has been at the forefront of an all women of color video production company that champions intersectional solidarity. Through her innovative work, she has contributed significantly to the media landscape, particularly focusing on themes that resonate deeply with diverse communities.
Professional Background
Jalena’s career is marked by a series of impressive achievements that underline her expertise and dedication to the arts. She has directed and produced a range of impactful video content that has reached national audiences. Breaktide Productions, co-founded by Jalena, has successfully completed national campaigns for prominent brands such as Nike and Thinx. Under her direction, Breaktide's compelling branded content has not only captured viewers' attention but also earned acclaim at prestigious events, garnering two Cannes Lion awards, one of the highest honors in the advertising industry.
Jalena's filmmaking prowess extends to producing a short film for the acclaimed series Independent Lens, showcasing her ability to bridge creative storytelling with social impact. Her films have garnered significant visibility, screening at the United Nations, Hawaii International Film Festival (HIFF), CAAMFest, and the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (LAAPFF), further establishing her as a leading voice in contemporary cinema.
Throughout her career, Jalena's work has been supported by notable organizations, including NeXt Doc, the Jacob Burns Creative Culture Fellowship, PIC, and Nia Tero, providing her with opportunities to refine her craft and expand her influence in the industry. These affiliations not only underscore her talent but also her commitment to using media as a tool for change and healing.
Education and Achievements
Jalena Keane-Lee's academic background lays a strong foundation for her career in film and media. She earned her Bachelor's degree in Political Science and Cinema and Media Studies from Wellesley College, where she honed her analytical skills alongside her passion for visual storytelling. Prior to that, Jalena completed the International Baccalaureate Diploma at Berkeley High School, which provided a rigorous and comprehensive academic experience that prepared her for the demands of higher education.
During her time at Wellesley College, Jalena immersed herself in various roles, including serving as the Executive Producer at Wellesley College TV, where she directed and produced student-led content. Her involvement in the college's media ecosystem not only enriched her educational experience but also contributed to her professional development as a filmmaker.
Jalena’s professional journey has seen her occupy various roles that highlight her multifaceted talent in the media industry. As the former Sally Burns Shenkman Woman Filmmaker Fellow at the Jacob Burns Film Center, she engaged in initiatives that supported female filmmakers while advancing her storytelling capabilities. She has also held positions such as NBC Summer Fellow at NBCUniversal, Executive Producer and Director for 'The Construct' at Blue Peel Productions, and Neighborhood Mobilization Coordinator at Erwin and Muir Public Affairs and Political Consulting, each role contributing to her comprehensive understanding of both film production and public engagement.
Notable Contributions and Recognition
Jalena's work is characterized by a deep commitment to addressing critical social issues through the lens of media. Her ability to connect with audiences on a personal level while addressing systemic issues has earned her widespread recognition. In 2019, Breaktide Productions was honored with a spot on the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) 100 list, a prestigious recognition of changemakers who are making significant contributions to the arts and social justice.
Furthermore, her involvement as a featured speaker at the Alameda County Office of Education reflects her dedication to using her platform to inspire and educate others. Jalena’s journey also includes roles in community-oriented projects, such as serving as the Director of High School Marketing Campaign at Roots of Success, where she utilized media to empower youth and promote environmental sustainability.
Jalena’s breadth of experience also includes creative contributions to publications such as Seventeen Magazine as a blogger, showcasing her versatility as a writer and communicator. Her artistic endeavors also encompass performing arts; she was a member of the Performing Arts Company at Destiny Arts Center, illustrating her diverse talents beyond filmmaking.
Conclusion
In summary, Jalena Keane-Lee is an influential figure in the film industry whose unique perspective and commitment to storytelling is transforming narratives around trauma and healing. As a co-founder of Breaktide Productions, she continues to challenge norms and uplift voices that are often marginalized in mainstream media. Her journey from an academic grounding in political science and cinema to becoming a celebrated filmmaker and producer exemplifies her drive and passion for using film as a medium for social change. With her track record of success, including national campaigns, award-winning content, and active participation in communities, Jalena is poised to continue her impactful work and inspire future generations of filmmakers.
Achievements
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Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.